"There was blood coming down this aisle, and then on this one," said Anna Scally, the clerk who was on duty when she saw the trail of blood. "So they took her to the bathroom to get her cleaned up and I brought them peroxide."

Scally says the girl's mother told her the child had been bitten by a dog, but there was too much blood to believe that. And, the child had two holes in her upper back.

"This child was very lucky. It could've been deadly right away," said Sgt. James Hartman with the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office.

He says the three small children, including the four-year-old and two-year-old were left alone inside a car at the gas pump. He said the girl was accidentally shot by the two-year-old when the toddler picked up his father's loaded, unlocked handgun. It was a low-caliber weapon, but still could have been fatal.

Scally says the little girl was screaming and crying and "the gentleman didn't care."

That gentleman, Isaiah Marshall Davis, 26, of Winchester is now charged with abuse and neglect of children, reckless handling of a firearm and allowing access to a firearm by children. He's currently being held in the Northern Neck Regional Jail.

Scally was concerned the adults were not calling for medical help for the child, so she called the Sheriff's Department, but the man and woman loaded up the kids and took off before officers arrived.

The group (it's unknown what kind of relationship the man and woman have) was on its way to Colonial Beach, Va. When they arrived, some kind of altercation occurred and police were called. The child was finally taken to a hospital where she was treated and released.

Though the dog-bite story was false, the group did have a dog, which was a Chihuahua. But they left the animal at the gas station when they took off. Officers tried to catch it Friday night but were unsuccessful. The next morning, it was the store's door. The manager says a truck driver who "really wanted a dog" adopted the pooch on the spot and took him.